Well, no other way to say this, but my State Government just took away FFF.NET's main source of income for funding the site.

Nothing more I can do at this point.

Quote:We regret to inform you that the Hawaii state legislature has passed an unconstitutional tax collection scheme that, unless vetoed soon by Governor Lingle, would leave Amazon.com little choice but to end its relationships with Hawaii-based Associates. You are receiving this e-mail because our records indicate that you are an Amazon Associate and resident of Hawaii.

Please note that this is not an immediate termination notice and you are still a valued participant in the Associates Program. All referral fees earned on qualified traffic will continue to be paid as planned.

But because the new law is drafted to go into effect July 1st, we will have to terminate the participation of all Hawaii residents in the Amazon Associates program on or before that day. After the termination day, we will no longer pay any referral fees for customers referred to Amazon.com or Endless.com nor will we accept new applications for the Associates program from Hawaii residents.

The unfortunate consequences of this legislation on Hawaii residents like you were explained in detail to key senators and representatives in Honolulu, including the sponsors, committee leaders, and House-Senate conferees. We also have explained by letter these unfortunate consequences to Governor Lingle, and have twice requested her veto.

Note that other states, including Maryland, Minnesota, and Tennessee, considered nearly identical schemes, but rejected these proposals largely because of the adverse impact on their states’ residents.

What can we do to help, and how much "help" are we talking about?
Keep in mind remaining CSTS events are gatherings of browncoats where word could be spread. Would we need any ident process to accept fundage on behalf of fff.net and also do you have a snail mail address to send "help" to?

Quote:Originally posted by ecgordon:
If the worst does come to pass, at least you already have a PayPal Donation button in place. All of us could contribute a little that way to keep the shiniest website afloat, right? Who's with me?

Can someone explain why we're blaming the governor rather than blaming Amazon? The email from Amazon is pretty light on details about exactly what is supposedly wrong with this tax collection scheme and if it was truly "unconstitutional" as they claim then there's these little things called courts that can remedy that. And a company the size of Amazon has no shortage of lawyers.

Sounds to me like Amazon doesn't like the law and they're trying to translate that dislike into political pressure on the politician they're unhappy with.

I could be wrong - certainly governments really do do epicly stupid things all the time. But I'd expect that if that were the case they'd elaborate a little more on what this tax provision consists of and WHY it means they can't do business any more.

Either way, in the absence of further information I'm gonna assume the blame lies on Amazon here, not the state. Until someone provides a reason to believe that this tax provision really is as bad as they are claiming, anyway.

It mentions that the Supreme Court ruled a similar situation unconstitutional in North Dakota.

Quote:The U.S. Supreme Court, in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota in 1992, ruled that it was an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce for North Dakota to apply a use tax on an out-of-state office supply company that had customers but no outlets or sales representatives in the state. The court found there must be a "substantial nexus" through a physical presence in the state to prevent the reach of state taxes from interfering with the national economy.

Here is what someone else more knowledgeable than I about the matter wrote:

Quote:The bill will require any online merchant (Amazon.com, Buy.com, etc) that has affiliates in Hawaii to pay Hawaii sales tax. Meaning if Amazon.com has affiliates in Hawaii they must then charge Hawaii residents 4.5% sales tax on all their purchases.

Currently Amazon.com and almost all other merchants do not charge sales tax on items sold to Hawaii residents. If this bill were to pass they would have to charge sales tax if they have affiliates. To avoid this tax many merchants such as Amazon.com will just dump all their Hawaii affiliates and advertising contracts with Hawaii residents. By doing this they won't have Hawaii affiliates and will not have to charge Hawaii state tax.

As you can see this is a not a good bill because what ends up happening is Hawaii will still not get their sales tax and on top of that they hurt Hawaii affiliates by getting them kicked off advertising network such as Amazon.com, Linkshare and Commision Junction.

So, basically, it comes down to economics. Many States need money for their coffers and see this as a means of collecting more taxes.

Amazon feels that its unconstitutional for them to have to pay a State Sales Taxes if they neither sell items out of that particular State nor have consumers who are purchasing from within that State.

I could be wrong about this and will have to look into it further, but from Amazon's perspective, the Associates are simply advertising for them and receives a commission for that advertising.

Bottom line is, come next week, I can no longer use Amazon as a means to fund the site, which is pretty annoying. We were just breaking even. So whatever expenses that needs paying will have to be paid out of my own pockets,through donations from the site members, and Google ads, which are dismal and not worth mentioning.

Let them relegalize and tax their most valuable cash crop - I of course refer to marijuana. It's possible to finance a large chunk of government that way - look at NH where the state has a monopoly on selling alcohol, and no state income tax.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Well, hell, Haken, I don't like the sound of this at all! One, it's screwing you, and in turn US, out of our favorite place. Two, *I* sell to customers in Hawaii who then resell to THEIR customers in Hawaii. As such, wouldn't my customers (groomers and pet supply retailers) then be required to pay the sales tax to me, and I in turn have to pay it to the state? Of is it enough that THEIR customers pay THEM the sales tax in the state?

I'm not really in any position to start charging each state's sales tax to every damn customer I sell to in that particular state, and this kind of stuff pisses me off. This isn't helping small customers; it's hindering them. It's not going to help the economy at all, either, because fewer and fewer small businesses will be able to participate in fewer and fewer states. The mega-box conglomerates will, however, still be able to compete, because they have the wherewithal to devote entire departments to keeping track of, and following, each state's ever-more Draconian rules...

Mike

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

Could you please just make it stranger? Stranger. Odder. Could be weirder. More bizarre. How about uncanny?

Hey Haken,

I owe you and the fans here big. I'm not in a financial position to do much (yet), but I'll see what I can muster. If there is anything else I can do, don't hesitate to ask!

I am all too familiar with state legislation that imposes hardship on the citizens strictly for the benefit of the government which has failed to manage itself properly (like here in Ohio where I led to me losing my last job because the State decided it should be illegal so the Big Banks (their bedfellows) could make more money on top of their Fed bailout).

This site is too important, I believe, to too many of us. It'll take more than Hawaiian politics to kill us!

Absolutely, let us know how we can help. These here folk are the first Browncoats I found after discovering Firefly, and there's too much history here to let it just disappear. We're waiting for updates on the situation when you have time.

definitely count me in on helping. Anything we can do... This doesn't seem like a smart decision on their part, I mean that loses alot of advertising pull...but yes, I agree it'll take more than this to bring us down.

My first thought about the letter was that the phrasing Amazon used as "unconstitutional tax collection scheme" just strikes me as plain manipulative. They are a large enough company that a letter that simply sounded whiny wouldn't make it out the door. Unless it was meant to steer your opinion/emotions to a specific end. But, i tend to be suspicious about stuff lol!

Keep us posted to what we need to do. I don't have much this month, medical bills have made me choose between buying food for my family and going to the CSTS event in my neighborhood. Le sigh. I am sure I can spare at least $5 (I am sure i can find someway to help and who needs eggs anyway!)

*hugs* to all my fellow Browncoats.
We're still flying... and somedays it's enough.

Quote:Originally posted by ecgordon:
If the worst does come to pass, at least you already have a PayPal Donation button in place. All of us could contribute a little that way to keep the shiniest website afloat, right? Who's with me?

Seeing as losing this site would be losing my primary connection to the browncoat nation and my browser load up page, I will of course donate if necessary, but I'm a fan of the old browncoat mail inundation plan. -e

I just officially joined now, but I've been a "guest" floating around here for ages, and always appreciate the shiny news and discussions and such, so I'd hate to see this site go down!

Like others have said, I'm short on the moneys, but if you give us some figures, I'd see if I can scrounge up a few bucks! And if there's anything else I can do (I'm not aware of any such silly laws in PA) I'll certainly be happy to help out!

I am completely onboard with Amazons response to this, as I happen to be well aware that a "temporary"* or "emergency" tax is just one more bite that will grow and grow infinitely and flow into the pockets of the well-connected while the powers that be find other ways to stick the knife in using the same excuses over and over.

Well, the line must be drawn somewhere, and here's as good a place as any.

My money is on Amazon in this one, and as soon as the public bares a few teeth on it, the politicos will quickly back down, pretend it never happened, and pat the beast on the head till it calms down... while looking for some other way to steal from it.

I am completely onboard with Amazons response to this, as I happen to be well aware that a "temporary"* or "emergency" tax is just one more bite that will grow and grow infinitely and flow into the pockets of the well-connected while the powers that be find other ways to stick the knife in using the same excuses over and over.

Well, the line must be drawn somewhere, and here's as good a place as any.

My money is on Amazon in this one, and as soon as the public bares a few teeth on it, the politicos will quickly back down, pretend it never happened, and pat the beast on the head till it calms down... while looking for some other way to steal from it.

I don't know, that article just makes it seem like we're caught in the middle of pissing war. I was going to suggest we all buy whatever we can before the deadline but now I'm definitely in favor of just handing the cash straight to Haken. Maybe we could do it PBS style and have a webcast telethon to raise money. Get some extra from the show to sing a terrible rendition of the Firefly Theme and then say call the number paypal operators are standing by.
-e

First of all, thank you for running FFF.net! Secondly, you just let us know when and how to rally.

At first blush, I think the PBS subscriber model idea could be the way to go, with a semi-annual, monthly, or quarterly reminder to help keep FFF.net flying. In the meantime, I am sending a little cashy money your way.

Quote: Maybe we could do it PBS style and have a webcast telethon to raise money. Get some extra from the show to sing a terrible rendition of the Firefly Theme and then say call the number paypal operators are standing by.
-e

That would be epic. A few other ideas for a telethon:
Prior to the telethon, we hold a vote for the top 5 episodes. Throughout the telethon, we announce each one in reverse order, with #5 at the beginning and #1 at the end.

I just made some purchases on Amazon through your links to help out a bit... but I know it's gonna take a lot more than that to keep FFF.net running.

I'm sure the folks here would be happy to toss in some coin each month to keep this shiny site in the Black up and running. Maybe you can set up some kind of little graph next to your PayPal donate button. The graph could track donations per month and show if the site expenses are being covered. The bar could display 50%, or 63%, etc., and if it's getting near the end of the month and more coin is needed then folks can toss in what they can.

Just a thought. Let us know when you've got a plan, or even a rough sketch... we can work with a rough sketch.

11th

>>>}———————————————)))============(((———————————————{<<<

"Because teenage pranks are fun when you're about to die!" - Hoban Washburne

Please let me know how to help. If needing cashy money is there an address I can send a donation? Not sure how you intend to work this HAKEN but I am in the UK, a widow and a pensioner, so will be wanting to send my money by post. Would also like to know whether it would be a monthly donation or whatever. That is, if the big money grabbing *hundan* don't come to their senses and kick this stupid idea into touch. I mean, how much money are they going to lose setting up this taxation scheme when companies like Amazon drop their associates like a hot brick? Somebody at the top of their murky food chain isn't thinking this through. I'm thinking they are from the shallow end of the gene pool.

First off, thank you all for your support. I was at my daughter's Girl Scout Camp this weekend and couldn't followup on what's been happening with this Amazon thing since Friday and also to send a personal thank you note to all of you who have donated money. I will definitely send those as soon as I can.

I'll try and get caught up as soon as I can and post an update.

Till then, you can follow me on Twitter if you want or become my friend on Facebook for any updates that I might post.

Quote:Originally posted by ecgordon:
If the worst does come to pass, at least you already have a PayPal Donation button in place. All of us could contribute a little that way to keep the shiniest website afloat, right? Who's with me?

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